mermaid easter eggs

The best thing that happened to my creative process has been becoming a mom! Lucy and her interests and ideas have become a big part of my inspiration. For the past 5 years, I have a little tradition of decorating Easter eggs in creative and unique ways and this year when I sat down to brainstorm ideas, I found myself totally inspired by Lucy and her current obsession with mermaids. I couldn't resist transforming eggs into mermaids!

A project like this calls for a little practice and planning so I started out drawing some simple whimsical faces. A face is actually much easier than most people thing, especially a simple one. Here are a few tips:

There are all kinds of ways to draw a face and the best part about drawing in a whimsical style is that pretty much anything goes! You can keep it VERY simple with just dots and lines for eyes, nose and mouth OR you can get more detailed and stylized with the features.

Drawing a face is really like a formula and once you get that formula down you can mix it up and get really creative. Start by dividing the face with a line down the middle, a line at the top for eyes, a line for the bottom of the nose and a line for the mouth. 

Play with different shapes and sizes of eyes, nose and mouth.

Use unexpected color in different places to add extra whimsy.

Once I warmed up with drawing faces, I jumped into painting my eggs. 

FYI- I like using real eggs that I blow out (I remove the yolk by poking a hole in each end and then blow the yolk out). 

First I painted a quick layer of solid color- I used different shades of pink.

Next, I lightly drew the mermaid's features then I filled them in with paint.

After the paint was dry, I used a permanent pen to outline everything.

Last, I used scraps of paper to make a crown and mermaid tail that I glued to the eggs.

The result are whimsical mermaids perfect for any Easter celebration that involves a mermaid obsessed three- year old!

Looking for more egg decorating inspiration? 

Have a look at all the tutorials I've shared over the years!

1. watercolor eggs 2. everyday decorated eggs 3. doodle eggs 4. colorful canvas eggs 5. scrappy little eggs 6.eggs and nest 7. altered plastic eggs 8. whimsical eggs 9. speckled eggs 10. geometric eggs 11. butterfly eggs